Conversations about AI are febrile and have been for a while now. Everyone has different views.
It’s frustrating for me because not only do I empathise with all of you, in some ways I have every major position in my mind.
I find myself impossible, messed up. Niller-nally, retwixt, fragmented.
I agree with the accelerationists
I briefly used an open source agentic programming tool with 1000 tokens/second of a top Chinese model. It was like a drug pumped straight into my veins. I worked on artificial life 27 years ago - we were trying to do the same at CyberLife, just much earlier. Creation can be beautiful, and helpful, warm and purposeful. There’s diseases to cure, climate models to optimise, software to make perfect for each person.
I agree with the artists
Our work has all been stolen, and remixed into a bland slop of the world’s cultural heritage. I’m more radical here than nearly anyone - I think model weights are a derived work of every bit of content they’re trained on. Power is winning, not rules. Because power wins. We can’t keep human emotion in art without a relentless disavowal of AI-generated art. Every single nuance needs editing, curating. I care about human emotion in art.
I agree with the nationalists
I watched the US administration suddenly declare that a powerful new model is available only to US citizens. It turned my stomach. My empathy runs high when the European Commission responds that Europe needs “technological sovereignty” in AI. It’s a race.
I agree with the doomers
I look at PauseAI and think… Yep, this technology can cause harm. Existential harm - if not with with current architectures as they scale, then at some point in the next decade or next century with another technology. It is necessary to regulate it, to sign international treaties. It’s nukes but accelerated not only by Government dominance, but also by business value.
I agree with the openness freaks
I’ve loved open source software since 1997. So when I see an argument that open models level the playing field, I’ve already watched it play out with software, and despite the problems, I agree. As the models work better and better, it is worse and worse that we’re locked into a limited set of providers, that power accumulates with the few.
(I guess I don’t really agree with people opposed to data centres because of water or power use - as that seems solvable with the right infrastructure. And the other issues dominate those proximate questions, however much of an environmentalist I am. There are stronger reasons to oppose data centres.)
… breathe …
Yes that all contradicts. It fragments. Open models is the worst for doom, AI sovereignty is the opposite of a pause, protecting artists’ works blocks acceleration. Nothing functions.
Why am I this splinter of contradictions?
Because all the arguments are right, but which is right the most depends on what happens.
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If we’re at the top of the S-curve and AI capability stalls with a few more 10% improvements that cost 2x the amount… Then yes let’s roll it out, let’s make it open for everyone, and regulate the mundane risks, remove all the problems, gain all the benefits. Can’t stop capitalism, can get it right.
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If AI gets vastly more capable, but somehow without its own “will to power”, then I want to be in a large empire which controls its use for my benefit. The consequences for defense are mind-collapsing, unthinkable. The military acceleration unbearable. But what happens if instead you opt out? It’s bad.
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If AI not only gets more powerful, but we lose control, these alien minds start acting at scale and in a way we lose collective and individual control of. It spreads, either an inert cancer growing through our civilisation eating it up, or a willful Cthulhu monster carelessly and deliberately breaking everything apart.
And nobody knows what is going to happen.
I’m kind of tired, agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously with every post on the topic.
Frozen.
I guess I’ll email my MP about holding AI developers liable for severe harm. That seems a good next step.